Dominic Solanke lifts Bournemouth with double to sink weary Newcastle

There is a yellow wall in Bournemouth, but it is made of sandstone and lies beneath the row of pines that edge the cricket pitch just over the road from the car park. Having played in front of the Yellow Wall at Dortmund on Tuesday – capacity of stand: 25,000 – a process of recalibration is required to play at the Vitality – capacity of stadium: 11,379. That, as much as fatigue, is the problem presented by the Champions League.

And it is becoming a problem: Newcastle have won only one of four games after European ties this season. That was, admittedly, the 8-0 win at Sheffield United, but at West Ham and at Wolves they were as flat as they were here. Seven points have been dropped in those three games so they now lie behind Manchester United, despite their perpetual crisis.

The physical demands, though, are taking their toll. Newcastle were without nine players because of injury which, with Bruno Guimarães suspended for an accumulation of yellow cards and Sandro Tonali banned for betting offences, led to two goalkeepers being named on the bench and a first Premier League start for the 17-year-old midfielder Lewis Miley.

Within half an hour, Miguel Almirón had been added to the casualty list after going down with what appeared to be a hamstring injury. If it is confirmed as such, it would make him the 32nd Premier League player currently unavailable because of hamstring issues, a spike that has been blamed on a combination of the stress placed in players by the modern fixture list combined with VAR and the way it gives games a stop-start rhythm. He was replaced by Matt Ritchie, once of Bournemouth and the scorer of a brilliant volleyed equaliser for Newcastle on this ground in 2019.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this was not the most fluent Newcastle performance and there was an obvious early issue on the left side of the back four. Twice in the opening quarter-hour Bournemouth opened them up on that side, Antoine Semenyo drawing a good low save from Nick Pope before a slight hesitation from Dominic Solanke allowed Jamaal Lascelles to make a vital sliding challenge.

There has been a strange sense that, with the exception of the 3-0 defeat at Everton, Bournemouth haven’t played badly this season, despite starting the day in the relegation zone. In part, that is probably because of the fixture list – they are yet this season to play Sheffield United, Luton, Fulham, Nottingham Forest or Crystal Palace, all currently in the bottom half. Poor results that don’t match up to performances are probably preferable to poor results that do, but neither is a particularly good sign. At some point if results remain disappointing, confidence goes and then the jig really is up.

They were far the more enterprising side in the first half, although once Newcastle had closed up the gap on their left, such chances as they created tended to be the result of driving runs through the centre or set plays. Justin Kluivert, having skipped away from Joe Willock, and Ryan Christie, gathering a half-cleared corner at the edge of the box, both had efforts beaten away by Pope.

Lewis Hall, for the third time this season, was substituted at half-time, Tino Livramento coming on. It was the other full-back, though, who handed Bournemouth an early opportunity in the second half, Kieran Trippier’s back-pass letting in Solanke. Pope, again, did enough to thwart him.

Bournemouth were on top but, as chances came and went, the sense grew that they might once again not quite get what they deserved from the game. Newcastle’s threat had been limited, but a whipped in Trippier free-kick that eluded everybody before being kicked away by Neto perhaps focused minds. Two minutes later the breakthrough came, Willock interrupting a flowing move with a challenge on Semenyo that served only to nudge the ball into the path of Solanke. This time, although his shot hit Pope on its way, he did force the ball over the line for his fifth goal of the season.

The former Liverpool striker made the game safe with his second goal 17 minutes from time, flicking in the rebound with his heel after Luis Sinisterra’s header from a left-wing corner had come back off a Newcastle post.